Climate disclosure should help investors understand: the bottom line

In this note, Alison Taylor remarks (see her article – and her book):

I’ve been in several discussions recently, and on a few panels, where I emphasized the need to be strategic and focused on sustainability issues, only to have the people I’m speaking to immediately descend into an impenetrable alphabet soup of ESG reporting jargon and regulatory roll out concerns.

And the fact that such people all say “ha ha, the alphabet soup” before they do this isn’t actually making it better 🤔.

We are doing a great job turning this into a giant, bureaucratic, compliance-led navel-gazing exercise with no clear purpose. I hear and read very little that would actually help someone trying to run a company. It’s investor needs, all the way down. As far as the point for the wider world, frankly I’m struggling to see one, apart from job creation for an army of analysts, consultants and standard setters.

Here, I attempt again to provide some guidance on how to approach disclosure and strategy on these topics. I feel a little like Sisyphus, but will keep trying!